Review: Our critic writes a letter to pop-soul star Teddy Swims

An open letter to Teddy Swims,

Dude, you flipped the script. You went from the King of Misery on your impressive “I’ve Tried Everything But Therapy (Part 1)” in 2023 to the Master of Mush on “I’ve Tried Everything But Therapy (Part 2)” this year.

I guess love will do that to you. Oh, congrats on being a new dad. Two weeks and counting. Have you been getting any sleep with the little guy in your life now?

In your first gig since becoming a dad, you seemed a little tired Sunday night at the jam-packed Armory in Minneapolis. Even noticeably out of breath at one point.

Still, it was a winning show, a balance between the professional and the personal, the cuddly and the heartsick, all woven together by your thick-as-molasses, soulful-as-Joe Cocker, volcanic voice.

Opening with “Not Your Man,” one of the few unhappy numbers on “Part 2,” made for a ferocious concert kickoff. Then you unleashed your rumbling, robust pipes on “Hammer to the Heart,” kicking off your backless shoes after one of them slipped off. You were into it.

This show felt very different from your performance in September 2023 at the Palace Theatre in St. Paul. Back then, you felt like a scrappy underdog, vulnerable to the point of truly emotional tears rolling down your face when the audience showed you love. It felt like an embracing hug assuring you that your misery, your pain, your overwhelming anxiety wouldn’t last. People loved you for your humanness, for exposing your unguarded feelings. You weren’t performative, you were real.

There’s a long list of female singers who’ve addressed mental health in their songs — Ariana Grande’s “Breathin,” Amy Winehouse’s “Back to Black,” Halsey’s “Gasoline,” Demi Lovato’s “OK Not to Be OK” and Doechii’s current “Anxiety,” to name a few.

But it’s much rarer for men to do that. Ed Sheeran did it with “Save Myself” (2017), Shawn Mendes with “In My Blood” (2018), Jelly Roll with “I Am Not Okay” (2024) and Lewis Capaldi with the brand new “Survive.” But you did it in spades with “Part 1.” That’s why you have so many female fans. They rally to your realness, to your vulnerability, to your resilience.

But now you’re happy, Teddy. Can I call you Teddy? Or do you prefer I address you by your given name, Jaten? Or Mr. Dimsdale? Crazy in love with Raiche Wright and your new baby boy. I get it. That’s why you have so many joyful songs on “Part 2.” Actually, I was exaggerating with the King of Mush sobriquet. Thankfully, yours are not silly little love songs. Yours are complicated expressions of love because love is complicated. At age 32, you understand that.

You kept it real Sunday when you talked about fatherhood and how you sobbed when you had to leave on the bus to Minneapolis. You shared a great line from your road manager: “You either have to stop drinking tequila or stop crying.”

Nothing was more moving than when you jumped off script Sunday and explained how you wrote a song a couple of years ago to describe what comes after the honeymoon phase of a relationship, and then you offered the unrecorded “Need You More.” Yes, it was schmaltzy but sincere, delivered with undeniable passion. And afterward, you declared: “I love that we totally did that one.” Amen.

It seemed to change the vibe of the show. The ensuing “Black & White” was a soulful duet, and your Illenium collab, “All That Really Matters,” a pedestrian lyric to be honest, was elevated by your impassioned voice showering 6,500 people with love.

You know how to work it. Loved the way you belted “few-nah-roll” at the top of your lungs during “Funeral” as you managed to sign autographs and sing at the same time and put a Sharpie back in your pocket.

Dude, you were yourself, hitting the stage in shorts to the midcalf, a plaid shirt and cowboy hat and later changing to an all-black ensemble of sleeveless T, pants with many zippers and a ball cap, and later adding a beige trench coat before bringing out the studded leather trench coat with your hometown Atlanta Braves ball cap for the encore.

You’ve added the requisite fireworks, flamethrowers and confetti (yes, you’re ready for arenas and could have filled one in the Twin Cities), but your live video screen was tilted at such an angle over the stage that it mostly benefited folks close to the stage, not those in the peanut gallery who would value it more.

One other thing that didn’t quite make sense was juxtaposing two songs with “crazy” in their titles — the brand new “God Went Crazy” and “Your Kind of Crazy,” which sounds more alluring in its doo-wop-like recorded version.

I wanted to mention some highlights like “Some Things I’ll Never Know,” with its “Walking in Memphis” piano and Dan + Shay-like chorus; the funk-rock banger encore that swings “Goodbye’s Been Good to You,” and, of course, the totally fierce “Lose Control” when your eyes looked like they were popping out of your head. That’s how you deliver the biggest song of 2024 in concert.

The way you weaved the gleeful and the downcast songs throughout your 1¾-hour program left us feeling that love isn’t easy. It requires give and take, commitment and compromise. May you continue to find true happiness.

Sincerely,

Jon Bream